Blog: Agile & Business

The ScrumButt Test (5): A prioritized Product Backlog is essential

October 6, 2013

We started a series on The ScrumButt Test some time ago. This is the fifth explanatory post about the test. To find the others, search above (right). Here is the original post. The second item in the second section of the ScrumButt Test is this: “There is a product backlog prioritized by business value” Seem […]

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Squirrel!!

October 5, 2013

The movie Up! is pretty good. A cartoon, with bits adults can enjoy. My kids were watching and I was also, out of the corner of my eye. There was one scene: the ‘bad dogs’ are in airplanes chasing the good guys. And someone yells: “Squirrel!” The bad dogs wreck their airplanes going after the […]

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Changing culture

October 2, 2013

I am giving a presentation at Southern Fried Agile on Oct 18th, 2013. On “Culture & Agile & Change”. Here is the presentation slide deck so far.  To me, it is mainly a reference and a take-away.  It does highlight some of the key things I will say (and many things I am sure I […]

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What is culture? When do we start to change it?

October 2, 2013

Some of us in the Agile community think:  an organization’s culture needs to change before agile can be fully adopted. This certainly seems to be true. Let’s define this more precisely.  The idea is this: Before a company can realize the full and extreme benefits of lean-agile-scrum, it must change its corporate culture to be […]

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Scaling: How about the “Don’t do it!” option?

October 2, 2013

There is a lot of talk lately about scaling. And, to some degree, scaling is necessary and good. They say only truly professional Teams try complicated plays.  Or should try complicated plays.  Most ‘lesser’ Teams do well to stick to basic blocking and tackling.  I think this is wise advice for most teams. Scaling by […]

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Deliver Faster

October 2, 2013

Why do we want to deliver fast, and then faster? Well, the first reason is…that’s what the customer wants. The customer is thirsty. They want a drink now. She does not want to wait for 3 months to get a major delivery of 200 water bottles. A drink now, please. The second reason: time to […]

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4 Announcements

September 30, 2013

We are happy to announce 4 things. 1. New LeanPub Book: Agile Release Planning. Some of you may have seen a prior draft. It is revised now. And published. I expect to have some further revisions.  I seek your feedback. You can see it here. 2. New Workshop: Story Splitting (Feature Decomposition) This is a […]

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More success with Scrum – How to get it

September 25, 2013

Fernando Cuenca has an excellent blog post, here.  He discusses what he learned at Agile 2013. I will summarize his teachings in my words. The ultimate question is: how to have a better life for yourself, your Team, and your Customers.  Specifically at work, using Scrum. Measure velocity.  Look for increases in velocity. Otherwise known […]

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Story Splitting (Feature Decomposition) Workshop

September 25, 2013

We have added a 1 day Workshop to many of our courses.  The one day is composed of 1/2 Day on Story Splitting. And 1/2 Day on Scaling.  This Workshop can be attended ‘alone’ (ie, you can take only this one-day workshop). What.  Story Splitting is always required. We always need smaller stories in the […]

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Impediments – From the Charlotte Class in Sept.

September 24, 2013

Here are some impediments identified in an exercise by the Charlotte CSM Class in September. Some duplicates, some overlaps. May this list make your Team more creative about identifying impediments. May it lead to your Team to fixing the highest priority impediment first. The List: Personal Agenda Hierarchical approach Understand tasks (tasks not understood, I […]

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